MCB 229 Spring 2000 Study Guide 24 Prof. Terry

Covers Lecture for May 9

This study guide is intended for you to use while you are doing the assigned text reading. Quiz questions will be made with reference to topics in this study guide. Quiz #24, based on questions from this study guide, must be completed by midnight before the class on Tuesday, May 9. You will need to create your "myWebCT" account and visit the MCB 229 WebCT page in order to access this quiz.

Chapter 35. Epidemiology & Public Health Microbiology.
  1. Epidemiologists must track not only the types of diseases present but also understand their dynamics. A number of terms help to distinguish different patterns of disease spread. What do the following terms imply: sporadic, endemic, epidemic, outbreak, pandemic?
  2. If you heard that a disease was epizootic, what would this tell you? How about zoonoses?
  3. Epidemiologists rely on statistical data. What do the following numbers mean: morbidity rate, mortality rate, prevalence rate? Which term best describes the following: "Between Jan. 1 and April 15, 2000, there were 931 reported new cases of group A streptococcal infection in the United States."?
  4. How is the incidence of disease in a population actually measured? Are predictions based entirely on reported cases that present symptoms?
  5. How do common-source and propagated epidemics differ?
  6. What is "herd immunity"? Under what conditions does it arise? Public health agencies commonly use a certain % immunity as a target goal in order to achieve herd immunity – what is this %?
  7. Do all diseases evolve noticeably over human time scales? How does antigenic drift differ from antigenic shift?
  8. In order to track any disease, epidemiologists must identify the reservoir, the transmission route, the period during which infected hosts act as carriers, and the pathway for exit from infected hosts. Using the following diseases that we have already studied, identify these parameters as best you can: tetanus, plague, diphtheria, typhus, influenza, polio, pertussis, gonorrhea, AIDS, cholera, group A streptococci, Staph aureus.
  9. What is a vector? A fomite? A vehicle?
  10. Where do new (also called emerging) diseases come from? What conditions favor such emergence?
  11. What are the 3 major ways of attempting to control disease? Give an example of a disease which has been effectively controlled by each of these approaches, and another disease which has not.
  12. What are nosocomial infections? How frequent are they in the U.S.? How can they be reduced? What are autogenous infections?